Some surgical procedures involve delivering a series of clips such as tacks, staples, or sutures to a surgical site within a patient. For example, hernia repair can include fastening a type of prosthesis known as a hernia mesh to the tissue within a patient's abdomen. One approach involves performing a laparoscopic procedure to go into the abdomen with a surgical tacking device and deliver a series of clips to fix the mesh in place. A surgeon makes an incision and inserts surgical implements as well as an endoscope or laparoscope—a small telescope with a camera attached—to see the target site. These methods suffer from shortcomings that are associated with risks of complication and patient pain.
For example, while the mesh is being unfurled or is first tentatively positioned, it may be particularly important to deliver several fasteners in rapid succession. If the device runs out of fasteners during this step, the mesh could go astray in an unpredictable manner. The mesh may fold or flop into positions that are unmanageable and may result in bowel adhesions and post-operative pain. Unfortunately, if a surgeon looks away from the scope to examine the tacking device, that can also result in loosing orientation of the surgical field which result in prolonging of the operation and may also result in surgical errors. Also, once the mesh is first tacked into the proper position, the remaining fasteners ideally should be evenly distributed around the edges of the mesh. This can only happen if the surgeon knows the number of fasteners remaining and therefore the number of fasteners to place along each edge. If the mesh is not fastened properly—if an edge is not fastened well enough or if the positioning goes astray—the repair can fail and hernia recurrences may require the procedure to be repeated.